The number of stabbings involving teens in the Rotterdam region has doubled in a year, police figures requested by broadcaster NOS have shown,

Police recorded 36 incidents in which knives were used in 2019, compared to 19 the year before. The number of minors involved may be higher, police said, because some incidents featured more than one attacker.

The Rotterdam police unit is the first to have figures on stabbings in the region, NOS said. But because there are no figures from before 2018 a definite upward trend could not be established.

Amsterdam police do not distinguish between the weapons used in incidents involving teens but has a clear insight into the number of perpetrators, which has jumped 50% in the capital from 209 in 2017 to 320 last year.

‘Apart from knives, this group of suspects also used guns and tasers. We are seeing a trend towards actually using the knives,’ a police spokesman told the broadcaster.

Parents

In February, Rotterdam’s mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said he planned to fine the parents of youngsters found to be carrying knives up to €2,500, in a bid to get tough on knife crime.

A majority of MPs have also expressed support for tightening the law on bladed weapons, but justice minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus said the solution lay in better preventive measures.

‘You can go out into the streets with a vegetable knife and act in a completely unacceptable way and stab somebody,’ he said in February. ‘We also need to look at how dangerous situations can be prevented in certain areas.’